The majority of MPs voted against requiring a report on the impact of abolishing a tax on collective investment schemes such as unit trusts and open-ended investment companies in an effort to make the UK a more attractive place to invest.

MPs were considering the Finance Bill[1]. The proposed amendment which was rejected in this vote stated:

Amendment 67, page 90, line 33, at end insert—

‘(5A) The Chancellor of the Exchequer shall, within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, publish and lay before the House of Commons a report setting out the impact of changes made to Schedule 19 of the Finance Act 1999 by this section.

(5B) The report referred to in subsection (5A) must in particular consider—

(a) the impact on tax revenues;

(b) the expected beneficiaries; and

(c) a distributional analysis of the beneficiaries.

Had it not been rejected this amendment would have taken effect on clause 107 of the Bill which appeared under the titles Stamp duty reserve tax and stamp duty and Abolition of SDRT on certain dealings in collective investment schemes

The tax section 107 provided for the abolition of is a special SDRT charge (known as the “Schedule 19” charge) on UK unit trusts and open-ended investment companies. This is "a 0.5 per cent charge on the value of surrenders, by investors, of units or shares in a fund to the fund manager, although this charge may be reduced in two different ways when the amount of tax is calculated".[4]

The Government announced at Budget 2013 that the Schedule 19 charge would be abolished in Finance Bill 2014 as part of a package of measures to make the UK more attractive as a domicile for investment funds.

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